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Beyond Constructing and Capturing: An AestheticAnalysis of 1968 FilmChandler WarrenUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
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Beyond Constructing and Capturing: An Aesthetic Analysis of 1968 Film
By
Chandler A. Warren
A THESIS
Presented to the Faculty of
The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska
In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements
For the Degree of Master of Arts
Major: English
Under the Supervision of Professor Marco Abel
Lincoln, Nebraska
May, 2015
Beyond Constructing and Capturing: An Aesthetic Analysis of 1968 Film
Chandler Warren, M.A.
University of Nebraska, 2015
Adviser: Marco Abel
This study revisits conversations surrounding the global moment of 1968 and the forms
of radical filmmaking that occurred during that time. Focusing on the Newsreel collective
and the Dziga Vertov Group from the United States and France respectively—groups that
utilized very distinct filmmaking methodologies and produced disparate aesthetics—the
study argues that traditional leftist film critique must be rethought by acknowledging the
revolutionary opportunities afforded to filmmakers through aesthetic elements like
voiceovers or intentionally manipulated relationships between image and sound of
specific shots. Instead of judging radical films within a spectrum of revolutionary
efficacy, the reflexivity afforded to the filmmaker by stylistic experimentation should be
given greater emphasis when critiquing such films. To achieve this, the study relies on
the work of Jacque Rancière to produce a conceptual framework capable of reconciling
aesthetics and politics, which remains a binary that traditionally has been kept separate by
the left. This framework highlights the importance of the sensible—literally what can be
heard and seen—for a political moment as defined by Rancière, and further justifies this
kind of analysis for the critic of radical films as a result.
i
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Debates Concerning Revolutionary Aesthetics ...........................................1
Chapter 2: Dziga Vertov Group and the Constructed Image......................................11
Chapter 3: Newsreel Group and a Third World Trajectory .......................................28
Chapter 4: Delineating the Politics of Aesthetics ..........................................................44
Works Cited ......................................................................................................................51
ii
List of Multimedia Objects
Figure 2.1. A typical shot of the students in Un Film comme les autres .........................11
Figure 2.2. Still depicting the militancy and immediacy of Cinétracts 019 .....................12
Figure 2.3. Fist breaks through the Union Jack in British Sounds ...................................16
Figure 2.4. Crane shot in Pravda .....................................................................................24
Figure 3.1. Patronizing guests as they enter Lincoln Center in Garbage ........................29
Figure 3.2. Still photo from Columbia Revolt ..................................................................34
Figure 3.3. Woman begins her descent underground in People’s War ............................38
1
Chapter 1: Debates Concerning Revolutionary Aesthetics
About 45 minutes into Olivier Assayas‘ Après mai (Something in the Air, 2012), which
revisits the heady days of political activism in early 1970s France in the aftermath of the
events of May 1968, a crucial scene occurs in which a collection of revolutionaries gather
to watch a film about the struggles of communities in Laos. The film is educational in
purpose and to this end heavily relies on a voiceover to describe how the struggle of the
oppressed people of Laos is currently unfolding. Following a round of applause from the
audience, the directors are invited on stage to answer questions. After a few friendly
questions that allow the two directors to explain their approach to filmmaking, one
audience member challenges them and their project: ―Your films adopt a classical style,
like that of the bourgeoisie. Shouldn‘t revolutionary cinema employ revolutionary
syntax?‖ One director replies that ―Such a style would be a shock for the proletariat. Our
role is to enlighten them.‖
In this brief scene, Assayas deftly reminds his contemporary audience of one of
the most crucial debates permeating the political left at the time: a debate about the role
that culture can and should play in the context of revolutionary struggle. More
specifically, he highlights the importance of aesthetics in producing a desired set of
political effects—that is, for them to help actualize larger revolutionary goals. This
moment, then, sets up a binary through dramatic means that casts one position about the
relation of content and form, politics and aesthetics, against another: a position that holds
that revolutionary content must be matched by revolutionary aesthetics versus a position
that holds that revolutionary content must be formed in easily accessible ways. That
2
Assayas dramatizes this debate in the context of film aesthetics has to do as much with his
own biography as with the historical circumstances surrounding May 1968 and its
aftermath. This context saw the emergence of radical political filmmaking across the
world, including in France, Italy, the U.S., and West Germany, but also in the form of
―third cinema‖ in Latin and South America.1 Moreover, this debate also permeated
intellectual accounts of the cinema, especially in the emerging discipline of film theory
and its developments in journals such as the Cahiers du Cinéma, Positif, and Screen,
among others. The pages of these journals were filled with analyses of films based on a
mix of Althusserian Marxism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Saussurean semiotics and
offered a forum for arguing about the ―right‖ kind of cinema, asking: what aesthetic
strategies must a filmmaker use if he or she does not want to be always and already little
more than a cog in the mainstream—read: capitalist—machine?
Taking my cue from Assayas, here, I want to suggest that the binary he
dramatizes in the scene discussed above, serving as an illustration for the general political
debate among leftists at the time about culture in general and film in particular, has
shaped our understanding of political filmmaking to this day; moreover, I take Assays‘
intervention—intentional or not—to be one that asks us to revisit this very binary and re-
examine whether it actually holds up to scrutiny, whether it can really be said to
characterize the films themselves or whether it was not the analytic lens(es) deployed at
1 The Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha, who was making revolutionary films within
this ―third world‖ context, stated that true revolutionary action should be vested in the
―personal agony‖ of a specific nation‘s people (Hitchens). This notion contrasts other,
more sweeping accounts of the 1968 moment that tend to universalize the revolutionary
experience.
3
the time that interpreted these films in a binary fashion. The following study will serve
two purposes: first, it will focus on two wholly distinct aesthetic programs carried out by
two film groups in order to demonstrate the possibilities afforded by aesthetic differences
and how those differences arise from particular motives of the filmmakers. Though these
motives occasionally include audience reactions, I also refer to motives that pertain solely
to the filmmakers and their creative process. This distinction further distances this study
from an approach similar to the dramatization in Après mai because both the audience
member and directors in the film can only highlight exterior motives directed towards the
viewer, whereas more individualistic motives on the creator‘s part are denied
significance. Because these stylistic affordances provided these two groups with distinct
diegetic possibilities, my thesis claims that further attention should be given to the
aesthetic elements of those films. Secondly, I posit that the tendency of leftist analysis
mentioned above can be reconciled through the thought of Jacques Rancière and the
aesthetics that are required for his politics to materialize.
In order to highlight two drastically different aesthetic agendas, I focus on the
Dziga Vertov Group from France and the Newsreel collective from the U.S., two groups
that formed in 1968. This year is significant because of the ubiquitous protests around the
globe spurred on by various national circumstances. For example, in the U.S., the Civil
Rights movement, along with reactions against the Vietnam War, led to nationwide
dissent in the streets and on college campuses (especially UC Berkeley); in West
Germany, a major cause for student protests had to do with post-war Germany‘s
perceived failure to clean house after the demise of the Nazi regime; in Japan, in contrast,
4
student strikes had to do with tuition hikes and the renewal of the country‘s security
agreement with the U.S.; and in France, students initially protested outmoded campus
housing policies before they were suddenly joined by France‘s working class, leading to a
general strike that nearly shut down the whole country for a few weeks. Yet, even though
the two filmmaking groups—Newsreel and the Dziga Vertov Group—responded to this
complex local and global nexus of causes, they differed in nearly every other aspect.
Their marked distinctions add authority to this study because the analysis offered
throughout can account for both of their approaches to creating revolutionary film. In
other words, it was necessary to choose approaches that could act as polar opposites in
order to show how effective an aesthetic emphasis can be, as well as how that approach
differs from a more traditional analysis from the left. By working through the two
groups‘ filmmaking motives and resulting aesthetics, this analysis will accentuate
different aspects of these films than a leftist critique would2. Whereas Assayas‘ film
suggests that the relationship of aesthetics to the left has largely been one of suspicion3
and basis for revolutionary viability, the following will look to aesthetics as exactly the
scene where political change can be established. Here I mean ―political‖ as a precarious
moment and relationship that exists within Rancière‘s thought, and political because of
the artist‘s attempt to understand his or her own social theories and practices through the
2 This can be witnessed, for example, in the way Glauber Rocha reacted to the beauty of
Godard‘s La vent d’est (Wind from the East, 1970) and how that devalued its militancy in
his opinion (Goodwin and Marcus 41), or in Gerry Elshaw‘s contention with Richard
Roud (98-100). 3 As Isobel Armstrong, drawing on Terry Eagleton‘s understanding of aesthetics as
ideology, puts it bluntly, ―The virtuosic feats of hegemony, the look-no-hands trick by
which hegemony makes people do what it wants by persuading them that they are doing
it voluntarily, are performed through the aesthetic‖ (31).
5
stylistic elements of the film. This alternative view of the aesthetic sphere—instead of
devaluing either group because of a certain stylistic mode that is chosen (or audience
reaction to that mode)—places both groups in a framework that can accept and account
for the opportunities that an aesthetic emphasis can present to the filmmakers.
The other reason for specifically focusing on these two groups is for their
contrasting material circumstances, which could serve as a productive node for
comparison and judgment. Though the Dziga Vertov Group certainly did not have the
funding of typical Hollywood films, they did receive monetary aid from and had deals
with organizations like the independent Grove Press. This is contrasted with Newsreel‘s
approach to production and distribution which, due to their unique financial situation,4
created a major economic distinction that further divided the groups. As a result, one
might be inclined to view this disparity as the sole reason for the aesthetic differences
that are made manifest in their films. As this study will show, this approach would ignore
the motives of the two groups and accentuates the tendency to devalue the aesthetic
elements of their films. I will instead argue that these stylistic differences owe as much
influence to the motives behind the group and would continue to exist if these material
differences were evened out.
Though other studies offer a more robust overview of the groups‘ history, their
production circumstances, and their films‘ distribution history,5 it is worth offering here a
4 Michael Renov highlights some of the avenues through which New York Newsreel
financed their films, such as borrowing money from members‘ parents in ―Newsreel: Old
and New – Towards a Historical Profile‖ (274-275). 5 For Newsreel, Bill Nichols‘ master‘s thesis remains the definitive study of the group.
More in-depth studies of the Dziga Vertov Group are found in larger studies of Godard,
6
short description of both groups to help contextualize their distinct situations. The Dziga
Vertov Group formed around the student protests and social upheaval of May ‘68 in
France. Categorizing them as a ―group‖ is perhaps somewhat of a misnomer given that, in
large part, the films were the work of visionary director Jean-Luc Godard and his close
leftist friend Jean-Pierre Gorin6. After a string of films in the early sixties that were
considered to be masterpieces—such as the influential French New Wave film À bout de
soufflé (Breathless, 1960), Le Mépris (Contempt, 1963), or Masculin/Feminin
(Masculine/Feminine, 1966)—Godard left behind such examples of cinematic
playfulness and opted for an increasingly political approach to filmmaking. This
approach can be suggested through the filmmaking of La Gai Savior (Joy of Learning,
1969)—Godard‘s final film shot before the formation of the Group—which could be seen
as ―[Godard‘s] attempt to make a film which would break so dramatically with the
existing system of production and distribution that he would never be able to use it again‖
(Farocki and Silverman 111).7 The result was a series of films—from their first effort, Un
Film comme les autres (A Film Like the Others, 1968), to their last, A Letter to Jane: An
Investigation About a Still (1972)—that marked a distinct break from his former work
because of the dismissal of narrative significance, and because of the disjointed
relationship Godard attempts to create between sound and image; these films suggest a
but a particularly successful study can be found in Colin MacCabe‘s Godard: A Portrait
of the Artist at Seventy. 6 The collective did occasionally involve others—most notably Jean-Henri Roger, who
participated in filming process of Pravda, and cameraman Paul Bourron. 7 The ending to Godard‘s Week-end (Weekend, 1967), which features the words ―Fin de
cinema,‖ is also suggestive of a clear demarcation between the two distinct approaches in
the director‘s work.
7
break from other revolutionary film as well because of the emphasis placed on the
aesthetic mode at work in the Group‘s films. In this way, the collective offers an
approach that starkly contrasts with the director‘s response in Après mai—the Dziga
Vertov Group films ―shock‖ the audience, and their ability to ―enlighten [the proletariat]‖
is consistently questioned by critics.8 This is consistent with the group‘s penchant for
reflexive cinematography, which they expressed through the construction of a new
relationship between image and sound that confounded many viewers at the time (and
today). While the notion of reflexivity will be explored in more depth in the proceeding
section, I will refer to it throughout the study as a form of introspection for the director,
along with a self-awareness portrayed through the stylistic choices of the film. Thus, the
reflexivity of the Group is observed in the way Godard uses these films to examine his
own class circumstances and through the aesthetic choices that appear to reveal
knowledge of their own machinations. In the first section of this study, I will elaborate
how these films utilize their unique stylistic elements, how that impacts the audience, and
what opportunities arise for the filmmakers as a result.
The Dziga Vertov Group knew—and, as will be seen later, commented on the
radical approaches of—the Newsreel collective, which was formed by filmmakers of
varying experience in New York City that shared sentiments with the counterculture
movement of the late sixties. In the beginning, the idea was to formulate an egalitarian
structure of the movement and, reflecting the increasing presence of the women‘s
movement at the time, the Newsreel collective‘s production structures encouraged, at
8 The best example of this is Steve Cannon‘s reproach, which will be examined in the
next section.
8
least in theory, women to participate in the collective, though the most experienced
filmmakers (who happened to be white males) exercised the most control over the group.
Still, this inclusion was to both align with the progressive attitude of the New Left and to
have as many members available to shoot as much footage as possible. This was in an
attempt to both document as many sociopolitical events as possible and to quickly
distribute high volumes of films. In a short time, the collective produced a large number
of films that gave exposure to revolutionary groups such as the Black Panther Party in Off
the Pig (Black Panther) (1968) or that highlighted the actions taken against the draft in
BDRG: Boston Draft Resistance Group (1968). They shot their films in a consistent way:
they used handheld Bolex cameras and black and white film to shoot quickly as the
action on the streets unfolded and captured sounds with the help of recorders that they
subsequently edited to match the visuals, frequently adding a voice over narrative. The
group‘s motive for their distinct filmmaking was largely their desire to create an
alternative to mass media and, more specifically, agitprop for the militant left (Newsreel:
Film and Revolution 50-58). Robert Kramer, one of the collective‘s key members,
tellingly described Newsreel‘s position: ―You want to make films that unnerve, that
shake assumptions, that threaten, that do not soft-sell, but hopefully (an impossible ideal)
explode like grenades in peoples‘ faces, or open minds like a good can opener‖ (Kramer
on Newsreel). I will highlight this militancy—which echoes the cries from the audience
member in Après mai—in the second section of this study, in which I will show how it
served as the basis for an approach to radical filmmaking that greatly differs in various
ways from its French collective counterpart.
9
These two filmmaking methods—one more explicitly militant on the level of
content and the other more radical on the level of form—mirror the aesthetic output of
the groups‘ films and solidify the necessity for this type of study. If a critique of these
two groups takes a ―revolutionary syntax‖ as its focal point, then the Dziga Vertov Group
would be viewed as the more successful filmic model because it refuses to adhere to the
prevalent relationship of sound and image in mass media;9 but proceeding from such a
starting point would raise the question of what revolutionary syntax actually is. And if the
goal of revolutionary film is to portray the class struggle in a stylistic form that is
coherent and engaging, then Newsreel‘s films strive to provide exactly this. As a result,
these films get placed on a spectrum of success based on style, yet there is no real
analysis of how this style is being used in the film. Instead, as has been highlighted, style
has only been important in relation to the audience, as opposed to how the film or director
makes use of those elements within the framework of the film. For the Dziga Vertov
Group, their aesthetic—reflexively aimed toward becoming radical—was a conscious
attempt to construct a new image that would combat bourgeois film tendencies; for
Newsreel, their brief attempts at reflexivity came in poignant moments during their
trajectory toward Third World sentiments. And in both cases, this reflexivity, which is
paramount for a filmmaker like Godard, would be ignored through readings similar to
9 This relationship can be seen in easily consumable films that serve to perpetuate the
many cultural layers of capitalism. A mainstream film like Richard Rush‘s Getting
Straight (1970), for example, takes the issue of student protests and creates a nicely
curated film featuring Elliot Gould and an acquiescing relationship between sound and
image. Even with a revolutionary theme, the film depicts the events in such a way that the
audience perceives the film uncritically. The next section will explore how the Dziga
Vertov Group‘s films, in contrast, disrupt the ease with which their films could be
consumed by complicating this relationship.
10
those expressed in Après mai. The next section will more closely examine the reflexivity
that can be found in the Dziga Vertov Group‘s work, using a Newsreel film as a foil, not
to denigrate the latter but to put into starker relief the precise differences between the
groups‘ aesthetic ―programs.‖ After that, I will contrast a number of Newsreel‘s films
with the Dziga Vertov Group in more detail in order to further highlight the differences
that are derived from specific motives and how they function in the films.
Finally, as a conclusion to the study, I will turn to Rancière‘s notions of politics as
a means to reconcile these two disparate approaches to political filmmaking outlined
above and discussed below. This will offer a reading of the films that does not exist on a
spectrum of success or that weighs certain elements over others, but instead looks toward
the way these films depict the actual bodies on screen. For Rancière, whether or not a
member of the common can be heard and seen is of the utmost importance, and it is
within that discussion that a new understanding of how revolutionary film operates can
take place, specifically through the lens of leftist film critique.
11
Chapter 2: The Dziga Vertov Group and the Constructed Image
Un Film comme les autres (A Film Like the Others, 1968) begins with a group of students
and workers discussing the revolts of May ‘68 in a field—a sight that then gets
periodically spliced with black and white shots of the actual events about which the
students are talking. As the film unfolds, the viewer is struck by a number of elements
that separate the film ―from the others.‖ The most startling and frustrating is that the
audience only rarely and briefly gets to see the faces of those who are talking because the
camera is focused either on their backs, their feet, or the grass around them, and the
soundtrack is comprised (at many times) of multiple voices at the same time.
Figure 2.1. A typical shot of the students in Un Film comme les autres
The film never develops into anything further besides other angles of the students that
occasionally have a factory in the background, and the shots of May ‘68—taken from
Cinétracts (1968)—are devoid of the explanatory commentary that is found in other
12
documentary films (like those by Newsreel); instead, the viewer must make sense of the
images given the discussion that is being carried out by the students.
Cinétracts, a collection of short films created by a number of French directors
including Godard, provides an interesting comparison to the films of the Dziga Vertov
Group exactly because of the aesthetic similarities that it contains to the militant
perspective of Newsreel.
Figure 2.2. Still depicting the militancy and immediacy of Cinétracts 019
While Cinétracts sought to provide coverage of the ‘68 events as a form of
agitation, the result of Un Filme comme les autres is one that ―seeks to assault and enrage
the normally passive spectator,‖ as Wheeler Winston Dixon suggests, and is a tactic that
―would prove to be the model for Godard‘s political work in cinema for the next several
years‖ (104-105). The enraging aspect certainly worked—the audience of the first
screening in 1968 apparently hissed and ripped up the theater‘s seats—but the ―assault‖
13
on the senses is one that is more nuanced and requires more emphasis. The abandonment
of the Cinétracts approach for an aesthetic like that of Un Film comme les autres is
indicative of a larger progression that will be further explored in this section. Through the
attempt to destroy the capitalist image produced by mass media and construct a new
relationship between sound and image, Un Film comme les autres—the first official film
made under the Dziga Vertov Group moniker—is the first step towards the development
of Godard‘s own radical subjectivity. By radical subjectivity I mean a realization of one‘s
class role and recognition of the subject‘s trajectory towards becoming radicalized. As
will be shown in the rest of this section, this is of particular interest to Godard because of
the constant attempts in his films to build an identity for himself that could be
contextualized within the larger class struggle. This act of becoming, which for Godard
was a lengthy process, stands in stark contrast to more bourgeois notions of the subject
that has no stake in radical tendencies at all.
By mapping both Newsreel and the Dziga Vertov Group onto Bill Nichols‘(noted
Newsreel scholar and documentary film theoretician) conception of representational
modes, I would argue that while the Dziga Vertov Group falls squarely under the
―reflexive‖ mode, Newsreel never fully embraced the elements required of this reflexivity
in order to implement social change. While they often employed commentary in their
films, Newsreel never explored the possibilities that this form offers to the extent to
which it was employed in the Dziga Vertov Group‘s films. In Nichols‘ words,
―Reflexivity and consciousness-raising go hand in hand because it is through an
awareness of form and structure and its determining effects that new forms and structures
14
can be brought into being, not only in theory, or aesthetically, but in practice, socially‖
(Representing Reality 67). When a larger discussion of Newsreel takes place, it will
become clear that their motives fell closer to a larger international movement with
elements largely influenced by Third World class struggles, where hints of the group‘s
overall reflexivity can be seen. In contrast, being well-versed in film tradition, Godard
grappled more with the ―form and structure‖ of his films in order to question and bring
about social change. Thus, while Godard adopted Marxist ideology from around the
globe, the emphasis is placed not just on representing and depicting the class struggle in a
specific region but also on how that representation is determined by social influence as
well as the ways in which that representation causes its audience to question and compare
that influence to the forms of dominant representation by mass media. This of course can
be seen in Un film comme les autres, where Godard begins to play with the image, sound,
and structure of film, and begins to make films that reflect a particular revolutionary
motive to their audience.
While Godard makes use of Bertolt Brecht‘s theories about distancing and
alienation in terms of breaking the fourth wall in his earlier films, the Dziga Vertov
Group‘s films modified this theory to extend to the world of non-fiction. In the same way
that an audience becomes aware of the constructed aspects of a play when an actor calls
attention to them, an audience that encounters a disjunction between what is heard and
what is seen begins to question the social catalysts that caused the art into being. In
looking at Chinese acting, Brecht suggests that the methods that were employed by the
actors ―were directed to playing in such a way that the audience was hindered from
15
simply identifying itself with the characters in the play‖ (91). From this, Brecht suggests
that a social criticism of the play takes place on the part of the audience and that what is
needed in the theatre is a perspective that is channeled through a social view. The
sensually assaulting effect produced by the Dziga Vertov Group achieves a similar result
by disallowing the audience to identify with the characters portrayed on the screen. While
the circumstances and medium are different, the outcome is the same: new structure and
form are presented in a way that forces the audience to reexamine the intent of that
specific medium. This is simultaneously a sensible reaction—―Why are there two voices
speaking at the same time in different languages and why are faces not being shown?‖—
and a social one—―what kind of theoretical background has produced this nonsense?‖
This ideological question is the one that bridges the gap between Un filme comme les
autres and a film like British Sounds (1970), which demonstrates a greater mix between
explicitly fictive sections and ones that suggest a more natural link to reality that is often
associated with more traditional forms of documentary. Of course, Nichols‘ reflexive
mode of representation is still at play here, as British Sounds is constantly striving to
provide both a social critique and a critique of its own form as well; both attempt to raise
consciousness about society in a similar way that Brecht called for when discussing the
theater.
British Sounds (alternatively titled See You at the Mao) makes its perspective
clear and offers an affirmation of the group‘s motives in the very first seconds of the film.
A red sign showing the words ―British Images‖ (with ―Images‖ scribbled out and
replaced with ―Sounds‖) is shown while a female commentator suggests, ―In a word, the
16
bourgeoisie creates a world in its image. Comrades, we must destroy that image.‖ As a
result, the destruction of the bourgeois image—along with the construction of a new
image with accompanying sound—becomes the task of the film, and the audience must
read the film with that in mind. This is crucial in understanding how the group portrays
and interacts with reality because it cannot be within the traditional mode of bourgeois
filmmaking. In this way, just as a fist breaks through the Union Jack following the
voiceover (an image that will appear at the end of the film multiple times), the film
suggests it will attempt a similar rupture with the images produced by Western
imperialism and the relationship to audiences that capitalism determines.
Figure 2.3. Fist breaks through the Union Jack in British Sounds
This rupture, affirmed as a goal by the Dziga Vertov Group, could be seen as a
synecdoche for the rupture separating both the act of filmmaking and the aesthetics of the
Dziga Vertov Group from those of Newsreel.
17
As the next seconds of British Sounds unfold and a new voice begins talking
about British capitalism and the necessity to combat it, the camera begins a ten minute
tracking shot of the factory and workers creating automobiles.10
In between the loud
squeals of the machinery and worker conversation, the commentary is also interrupted by
the sounds of a man and a young girl engaging in a sort of history lesson of revolutions
carried out in the past as a result of class struggles. Through all this, the motives of the
filmmakers become especially clear when acknowledging the influence that Brecht had
on the group and the desire to alter the medium through which the images and sounds
were being conveyed. At the same time, even an audience without the knowledge of
Brecht must question whether this shot is fictional or not, which is never fully answered
except that the audience knows that part of the sound (the commentary) being heard is
non-diegetic. In other words, even the part of the experience that is known to be
contrived—the commentary—is not only convoluted through the man and the young girl
but also consistently obstructed by the diegetic sound of the factory. Additionally, the
tracking shot means that the workers are only shown for a short time before the camera
moves on, meaning the workers never get a chance to speak. By doing this, Godard
prevents the audience from associating with the worker and getting accustomed to the
setting in general because the grounding for reality is consistently being obscured. The
10
Though the camera movement in British Sounds is much slower, it is worth
highlighting its similarity to Godard‘s long take in Week-end (1967) that follows Roland
and Corinne as they navigate a traffic jam. They both follow automobiles, and the noise
of the machinery in British Sounds is reminiscent of the incessant honking in the Week-
end shot. While they both serve to critique Westernization and bourgeois ideals in their
own way, Week-end does so much more obliquely and is also used to highlight the
brutality of its central, fictional characters.
18
viewer does not get to hear the worker‘s political thought but instead is relegated to the
Marxist truisms of a faceless, unknown speaker that is frequently interrupted by an
unceasingly annoying squeal. This withholding from the audience continues throughout
the film in scenes where, for instance, a naked woman walks aimlessly across the
camera‘s view, a meeting of businessmen is conducted while the face of the one speaking
is rarely seen, or a congregation of students takes place without us learning why.
The audience experience of British Sounds creates a clear distinction between this
mode of filmmaking and other attempts at representing reality in ways that would be
considered bourgeois by Godard. In fact, one might look to the Newsreel film Strike City
(1967) as a secondary way of interacting with workers in this completely different mode
of representation. The film depicts workers in Mississippi that have gone on strike due to
low wages, their situation in tents during a particularly bad winter, and their hearing in
Washington, D.C. where they were denied any sort of federal help. The film eschews the
reflexive mode employed in British Sounds for one that audiences and critics might
describe as being more organic. The commentary of British Sounds comes from unknown
sources whose authority is altogether different from the workers depicted, and it talks to
the audience and workers instead of coming from the workers. For instance, the
voiceover suggests the workers need to adopt ―the abolition of the wage system,‖ while
the workers continue to assemble parts and remain unaware to what kind of commentary
will be placed over their captured image. Strike City, though it contains a similar
19
disjunction of image and sound,11
uses the voices of the community members and splices
this sound over the images of them tending to their homes. In a clever way, the film even
employs multiple voiceovers at once, which creates particular effectiveness when the
sound of a government representative can be heard discussing the lack of funding for the
workers while one of the worker‘s voices is kept softer. The juxtaposition creates its own
agitating statement that critiques an ideological sureness like the commentary found in
British Sounds and allows for an easier identification process for the audience to the
subjects of the film.
The comparison above is a similar argument to the one presented by Steve
Cannon, whose attack on the formal ―innovation‖ of the Dziga Vertov Group has not
only been influential in the study of the group, but is also especially relevant for this
study overall because of the questions it raises about variations of leftist aesthetic
critique. Cannon‘s argument responds to Peter Wollen‘s ―Counter-Cinema: Vent d’Est.‖
Vent d’Est (Wind from the East, 1969) is a Dziga Vertov Group film that was heralded by
Wollen for its revolutionary interaction with form and image. Cannon objects to this
claim in large part because the work of the Dziga Vertov Group failed to resonate with
any audience that could have reacted in a revolutionary manner. Cannon suggests that the
films ―block off any real communication with the un-converted,‖ leading to ―the
wholesale importing of Marxist terminology into questions of film making on a purely
metaphorical basis, rather than situating that film making within a Marxist analysis of
11
As an earlier Newsreel film, the technological complexities of synching sound with
image were still being worked out. Even in the few instances in the film when the sound
is supposed to mirror the filmed situation, there is noticeable lag.
20
society, with the class struggle, and rethinking the role of film making from there‖ (80).
This notion is getting at the main thrust of my argument because Cannon is indeed
spotting the major methodological difference between the Dziga Vertov Group and other
filmmaking attempts that were more interested in revealing the class struggle ―on the
streets,‖ but his argument eschews any aesthetic analysis beyond stating that certain
aesthetics could not resonate with certain audiences. Cannon contrasts the Dziga Vertov
Group with Godard‘s work on Cinétracts, suggesting that Cinétracts offered ―the
experience of direct intervention in a specific situation with a specific, politicized
audience‖ and that ―intervention in the directly political sense no longer seems to be a
key activity for the Groupe [Dziga Vertov]‖ (78). In other words, what is of most
importance for Cannon rests purely on a direct representation of the class struggle where
aesthetics should play a part only in making it relevant and accessible for the audience.
Cannon suggests that Godard and the Group fetishized certain aspects of Marxist
ideology (Brecht in particular) and, as a result, Cannon finds no importance in the
aesthetic elements of the group‘s work. Cannon‘s analysis is congruent with the trend of
leftist film criticism that was highlighted in the previous section and serves as an example
of why this study is a necessary addition to the understanding of revolutionary film and
aesthetics. If approaches similar to Cannon‘s devalue all but the concrete class struggle
then they ignore opportunities for revolutionary subjectivity that are reliant on filmic
aesthetics.
The film Pravda (1969) provides evidence to suggest that Godard experienced
such a reliance and showcases how reflexive stylistic choices can lead to radical
21
subjectivity for the filmmakers. In this way, Pravda offers an alternative way of situating
a societal analysis for a Marxist and becomes part of the Dziga Vertov Group‘s
progression. Though Pravda is one of the earlier films by the group and even predates
British Sounds, it addresses key issues in the group‘s development as filmmakers. Further
intensifying the use of Brecht, documentary, and an ideological apparatus in the form of
the commentary, Pravda provides the clearest insight into the motives and concerns of
the Dziga Vertov Group. Pravda provides a critique of the Westernization of
Czechoslovakia and depicts the contemporary situation as a revisionist failure that
requires action from its people in order to return to a proper Marxist state. Images of
Czechoslovakia are depicted while two voices engage in a political analysis of the region
under the guise of Vladimir (Lenin) and Rosa (Luxemburg). Here the soundtrack does not
partake in commentary as much as in a discussion or didactic moment as the two consider
how Czechoslovakia is revisionist and how capitalism has corrupted the minds of its
people. The disparity between representations of images similar to Cinétracts and formal
experimentation through commentary places the interaction with the film on precarious
grounds for some audiences. If Pravda is viewed as an attempt to concretely display a
class struggle or fight against revisionism in Czechoslovakia, then the representation of
its subjects would be marred by the contrived and fictional aspects of the commentary.
Such a view of Pravda, like Cannon‘s, criticizes the film‘s ability to represent
reality to the audience based on methodological reasons, as opposed to ideological or
aesthetic ones. While one way of gauging the success of a film like Pravda would be to
determine how well the audience understands the representations occurring in the film,
22
dismissing the film entirely on this basis alone would fail to acknowledge the reflexivity
exhibited in it. This is of particular interest with Pravda because these moments of
reflexivity take the form of the very imperialistic tendency that they aim to analyze and
destroy and, as a result, a critique of the film that fails to acknowledge this reflexivity is
missing its point entirely. For example, ―Vladimir‖ suggests that Czech films commit the
same error as Hollywood films by saying, ―Movies are made for the common man. You
go to the people, you don‘t come from them. You criticize the people‘s shortcomings
without taking the people‘s view.‖ This statement is doubly ironic because the film
(along with other films by the group) commits this exact movement of going to the
people instead of coming from them, and also because Vladimir‘s voice is supposed to
have the answers to the Czechoslovakian issue and yet does not seem to grasp that the
film is doing exactly what it is arguing against.
The ideal illustration of this awareness occurs earlier in the film when Czech
workers both in a factory and on the street are being interviewed in an attempt to show
―some concrete proofs‖ of how the Czech people ―refuse to struggle‖ against remaining a
class being. As a worker begins talking in Czech, Vladimir declares that ―If you don‘t
understand Czech you better learn it fast.‖ While the sound of the film literally comes
from the people, the audience is allowed neither to identify nor to converse with the
social theory of the worker. In accordance with Brecht, this makes sense—a viewer may
be able to understand the link to real representation but can neither partake nor become
acclimated to the medium without knowing Czech. The absence of subtitles marks an
absence of conversation and understanding on the audience‘s part and, when viewed in
23
this way, a critic like Cannon reads the film as a failure because the audience is refused
access to the class struggle. Though this view has specific criteria for film analysis that it
can critique, it overlooks that the film is aware of its own methodology and how that
impacts its representations.
A reading that recognizes Pravda’s awareness of its own elements suggests that
the film contains the key to understanding the motives of the group and their approach to
filmmaking, as well as a link to how Godard saw the group performing its unique
understanding of revolutionary film. In one of the final exchanges between the
commentators, following a close up of a red tram that occupies the entire screen for an
extended time, the conversation ends by acknowledging the necessity for failure when
striving for social change:
Vladimir: We need to make a new departure in the philosophy of images and
sounds. It is imprisoned.
Rosa: By who?
Vladimir: By the revisionist and bourgeois that imprison everything.
Rosa: Why do we have to free it?
Vladimir: Mao Zedong, who liberated the Chinese people, said that he used
philosophy to do it….The task of prisoners is to free themselves.
Rosa: You‘re acting in circles and we‘re not moving forwards.
Vladimir: It‘s by going around in circles that we advance….Men require a rich
experience drawn from both their successes and failures…Where do the right
ideas come from? Do they fall from the sky? No, they come from social practices.
24
As the conversation happens, the camera remains still during a crane shot of a circular
dirt patch with a red trolley on it, as if to solidify both the omnipotence of the camera‘s
sight as well as the inscrutable knowledge of the words being spoken. The red tram is
worth noting in the context of the film, as there are repeated attempts to view other red
objects (a rose on the ground or red wine being poured, for example) and ―red‖ ideology
in a way that seems correct to the commentary. Additionally, the shot can be seen as
further awareness of the film‘s approach towards the Czech people as the distance from
the ground would suggest an inability on the film‘s part to stand in for concrete social
practices (and hence is symbolically distant from its subjects as well).12
Figure 2.4. Crane shot in Pravda
In other words, the film knows that the distance from its subjects and the inability to
understand Czech is a reflexive strategy used as a critique of imperialism, not an attempt
at a bourgeois representation of workers that adheres to the wishes of capitalism. The
12
Douglas Murray also highlights the self-awareness of the film‘s dogmatic ideological
voiceover in French Film Directors: Jean-Luc Godard (94-95).
25
exchange also clearly highlights a number of factors important to Godard‘s filmmaking:
the attempt to restructure the relationship between image and sound, the influence of
Mao‘s philosophy on attempted social change, and, though often overlooked, the
requirement of attempting revolutionary action and failing. It is this latter notion that I
believe can reconcile the ideologies of Godard with the criticized aesthetics of his films
in the group.
For Godard, failure was part of participating in the revolutionary moment, and he
is quite self-aware about the shortcomings of his films from that period. ―You‘re not just
a teacher when you make a militant picture,‖ Godard said. ―You are both a teacher and a
learner. That‘s why you make mistakes‖ (Double Feature 44). In the process of
destroying the traditional relationship between image and sound and constructing a
revolutionary image that was not adhering to bourgeois ideology, Godard accepts the
errors inherent in the process as part of becoming a revolutionary figure (approaching
radical subjectivity). In many ways, this mirrors the process that is experienced by Paola,
the transplanted protagonist of the Dziga Vertov Group‘s Lotte in Italia (Struggle in Italy,
1969), who must confront bourgeois ideology on her route to becoming a true radical
subject. This happens ―through repetitively working through a very small number of
images until by reflecting on them she understands how her subjectivity is constituted by
the class struggle‖ (McCabe 229). Though this process is grounded in material
circumstances, for Godard, it was carried out through an exploration of the relationship
between image and sound in his films; his attempts at becoming a revolutionary should
therefore not be dismissed on account of his aesthetics, for it is the very sphere in which
26
that radical subjectivity is formed. And, realistically, it was the only option that was
afforded to him given his social situation at the time. As James Monaco succinctly
suggests, ―Godard symbolizes the dilemma of the bourgeois intellectual revolutionary:
thoroughly committed to radical politics, but prevented by his class and role from
participating existentially in the struggle‖ (217). While I agree with the statement that
Godard knew films better than he knew politics,13
I would suggest that the very act of
making these films was revolutionary in and of itself. The films should be seen as part of
not merely a larger corpus but also a specific process devoted to revolutionary becoming.
―[Making a definite break with what I was] can‘t be done in just one day – it‘s going on,
and it will go on until my death. Probably, my son will continue it.‖ (Goodwin and
Marcus 57). If the aesthetics of the Dziga Vertov Group are seen under the lens of a
continuous becoming of a specific revolutionary subject, then I would argue that
criticisms like Cannon‘s fail to grasp the importance of this process because they are too
distracted by a dogmatic Marxist approach to analyzing film.
This is made even clearer when considering how Godard felt about Newsreel and
the mode of representation that may be more in line with a militant Marxist tradition.
While he does contrast Newsreel with Hollywood, Godard states that:
from the pictures I‘ve seen I think they are working in the wrong way, at least for
the moment. They are just trying to spread other information than the
establishment. It‘s not enough to just show students on strike or people rioting –
13
―He knew film; he did not know politics. He could deal with the structural nature of
politics because he could compare it with the structural nature of film, and so his politics
were expressed in filmic terms and his films spoke the language of politics though they
seldom came to grips with the concrete issues of politics‖ (Monaco 214).
27
the task of the militant film maker is much more difficult. How can you build an
image of a riot, how can you build an image of a striker, when you don‘t belong
to the working class? (Goodwin and Marcus 59)
The distinctions discussed earlier become clearest here, as the underlying revolutionary
motives for Godard are once again heavily invested in the construction of a radical image
as opposed to the simple capturing of events (and radicalizing them through the
production and distribution). In other words, it is not about showing alternatives but
about creating alternatives and finding meaning within that experience. By thinking about
filmmaking in this way, the preferred mode of representation for Godard is reversed from
Cannon‘s. While Cinétracts is closer to a ―successful‖ film from Cannon‘s standpoint,
measuring success is harder for Godard because it is not a matter of audience
comprehension or agitation through depiction. Instead, it is a more personal reaction to
the way in which the filmmaking occurred and how the finished product was able to
create a novel image/sound relationship. The progression of Godard can be seen on this
spectrum of leftist aesthetics because on one hand his Cinétracts work suggests a desire
for capturing the events of May ‘68 as a radical endeavor and, on the other, he adopts an
approach in the next few years that criticizes the very form of filmmaking used in
Cinétracts. The task of the next section will be to look closer at the Newsreel films and
their approach to filmmaking to compare the progression of the group to the one
witnessed in the Dziga Vertov Group and to explore their relationship with radical
aesthetics.
28
Chapter 3: Newsreel Group and a Third World Trajectory
In the Newsreel film Garbage (1968), the radical group ―Up Against the Wall,
Motherfucker‖ brings garbage from the Lower East Side to the Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts as a means of protesting against all that the Lincoln Center represents.
Like other Newsreel films, Garbage is shot in black and white and contains commentary
that, despite occasionally sounding as if an entire room is engaged in conversation, rarely
gives faces to its voices. This refusal occurs in Newsreel films quite differently from the
outcome in the films by the Dziga Vertov Group because the image shown usually
coincides with the voiceover in the Newsreel films. For instance, as the voices discuss the
city‘s waste removal and its impact on the local communities, the image shown is that of
the streets with trash piled on either side. The voice acts as a grounding mechanism for
Newsreel that provides additional information for the image being viewed, while it
largely serves to alienate the viewer in the other group‘s films.
Yet what is most telling about Newsreel occurs halfway through Garbage as the
camera follows the group holding doors open and welcoming guests in a patronizing way,
when one of the members creating the commentary can be heard saying, ―Lincoln Center
is a falsity; a contradiction of reality. And…we‘re just gonna smear reality all over them.
Garbage is the shit that is the most concrete way of not seeing things in plastic terms.‖
29
Figure 3.1. Patronizing guests as they enter Lincoln Center in Garbage
This moment can be said to foreground the stylistic norm of the Newsreel group
in terms of aesthetics while also representing a key element of their collective motive—
confronting the ruling class with the ―garbage‖ of reality. The notion of ―smearing‖
mirrors the militancy with which Newsreel sought to create their films, and ―garbage‖ is
doubly essential for both of its meanings: first as an object that is detested by bourgeois
ideals and second as the refuse of society that exists on the fringe—the unaccounted for, a
crucial part of Newsreel‘s films that I will return to in the concluding section. For now
the focus remains on the representation of reality that Newsreel chose in the
confrontations presented in their films.
While I want to focus on aesthetics rather than on distribution and material
circumstance for this study, I will divide the Newsreel films into two camps that resemble
the historical trajectory of the group. New York Newsreel represents the early Newsreel
30
that was intent on this sort of ―smearing‖ where the goal was to capture reality as a means
to agitate. Due to a number of factors including monetary issues and internal strife, New
York Newsreel slowly vanished by the early 1970s while the focus shifted to Third
World Newsreel and San Francisco Newsreel (which would later become California
Newsreel), both of which still exist today. Though the necessary work of mapping these
groups onto a material spectrum has already been done,14
this section will view the
transition towards Third World and California Newsreel through their aesthetic
development. Both groups rely on different motives from the early Newsreel films
because their focus shifted towards depicting those with an even smaller voice in the
public sphere than those featured in Newsreel‘s earliest efforts. And while the production
of both groups has been immense since their inception, one can already see the beginning
of this transition by viewing New York Newsreel‘s approach to different subjects and
reflecting on the resulting changes in their aesthetics.
In addition to the confrontational element, the connection created between early
Newsreel films and the audience at screenings was as integral to the group‘s radical
subjectivity as the militancy that was expressed through its aesthetics. Newsreel films
were screened with the intent to create discussion that would lead to a heightened social
consciousness for the audience.15
This is dramatized in Newsreel member Robert
14
For a comparison of the different Newsreel organizations in terms of production and
distribution see Michael Renov‘s Newsreel: Old and New – Towards an Historical
Profile (279-286). 15
Marilyn Buck and Karen Ross reflect on their methods of street screening by saying,
―Street projection is the first answer we‘ve come up with so far. We take the films into
the street, we stop people on the street, and confront them with our films. Involve them as
participants….To those inquisitive, we explain more. To those objecting, we can try to
31
Kramer‘s Ice (1970)16
when a group of revolutionaries take over an apartment building in
order to politically educate the inhabitants through making them watch films and engage
them in political (albeit propagandistic) conversation. Though Ice portrays a forced
screening, Bill Nichols sees this relationship between film and audience as being a unique
aspect of Newsreel, as well as being necessary for the group‘s development. While the
location of the screening largely influences how it is received, he suggests that:
by insisting that we consider the film within a larger context than its internal
aesthetics or its extractable ―message,‖ by demanding that it serve as the catalyst
for debate and heightened awareness, Newsreel has extended its concern beyond
the inherent properties and effects of their film medium to the contextual elements
that constitute each historical moment in which their propaganda is made
manifest. (Newsreel 100)
This understanding supplies a counterargument to Godard‘s assessment of militant
filmmaking and acts as another wedge between the two groups. While Godard‘s line of
thinking dismisses Newsreel films on their aesthetics alone, it overlooks the opportunities
that their films afford to radical subjectivities created within the audience. One wonders
how Godard would classify the reaction to a Buffalo screening of Columbia Revolt
(1968), for example, which caused five hundred students to destroy the campus ROTC
building (Rat 8). On one hand, the students‘ actions are reminiscent of the students
break their arguments….We have our confrontation as people, Newsreel has its
confrontation through film‖ (Film Quarterly 46). 16
Ice is a fascinating film not only because it can be viewed in reflexive terms but also
because of its use of documentary elements and the political message it makes about
media. Still, it is more of a Robert Kramer film than a Newsreel film and thus rests
outside of the scope of this project.
32
Godard defends for leading the revolution and fighting with cops on the streets (Goodwin
and Marcus 43-44), yet on the other hand they are reacting to a film whose aesthetics are,
according to Godard, not militant enough because they lack adequate analysis. While
there may not be a definitive answer, the question in and of itself points toward a
significant transfer of focus that occurs between the groups in terms of radical
subjectivity. For the Dziga Vertov Group, this class consciousness is vested in the
stimulation that is caused by their alienating aesthetics; for Newsreel, the viewers‘
reaction was caused by the ―smearing‖ of the ugliness that they captured from reality as
well as the discussion that followed that viewing. As a result, the most significant
differences that are manifested in both groups‘ aesthetics outline their respective aim for
raising revolutionary consciousness.
Furthermore, it is unclear if aesthetics and audience contextualization are
mutually exclusive in the relationship that Nichols creates above. In other words, if the
Dziga Vertov Group bases their radical subjectivity in the construction of a new
relationship between image and sound, does this preclude heightened political awareness
because it does not force the viewer to move beyond the inherent stylistic elements of the
film? In what remains of this section, I will argue that while this relationship between
film and audience seems to resonate for Newsreel, it should not be employed as a means
of disregarding the importance of the aesthetic choices made in their films. Instead, in a
similar way to Godard, the stylistic choices of the Newsreel films suggest a trend towards
their own increased radical consciousness over time. For Godard, this meant continuously
attempting to create a new radical image separate from capitalist media; for Newsreel, it
33
meant slowly focusing their revolutionary tendencies toward a feminist and Third World
perspective.
Columbia Revolt (1968) remains the quintessential Newsreel film because of its
subject matter and employment of commonly used aesthetic choices. On many levels, the
film can be read as an element of pro-student propaganda created around a massive
student-led strike at Columbia University. The first four minutes contain shots of
corporate buildings as a voice explains how the university has become a ―means of
production…producing the mechanisms for human oppression.‖ As the height of the
shots moves closer to the ground, the vantage point never leaves the level of the students
except to show the sheer number of their congregation. Once the camera reaches that
level, the voices continue describing the issues enraging the students—from the
construction of a new gymnasium with unequal race opportunities to the influence that
industrial entities (geared towards ―the war machine‖) had over the university board—
while the camera maintains that position (both in terms allegiance to the protesters and
lowered height) throughout the film. Newsreel had multiple film crews stationed in
buildings across campus that captured the images of students occupying those buildings
while the soundtrack contains voices including students, Newsreel members, and
community members—both demonstration sympathizers and police officers once they
are called to react to the students. As the police response becomes violent, the film
depicts live images of the commotion alternating with still photos of injured students
while participants‘ voices describe the brutality. In multiple photos, students are shown
severely beaten and bloodied in a way not unlike war photos – not only is bodily harm
34
apparent from the amount of blood, but students are dazed and bewildered by the force
exerted by the police.
Figure 3.2. Still photo from Columbia Revolt
This notion reflects the motives of early Newsreel and is mirrored in the sentiments of
vocal member Robert Kramer: ―Our films remind some people of battle footage: grainy,
camera weaving around…Well, we, and many others are at war. We not only document
that war, but try to find ways to bring that war to places which have managed so far to
buy themselves isolation from it‖ (Newsreel 47-48).17
This quote echoes the multiple
sentiments derived from Garbage and the class struggle that the film portrays while also
further solidifying the approach of New York Newsreel within a militant sphere.
17
John Hess suggests this quote ―reflects an identification with oppressed third world
people here and abroad so strong as to hinder rational thinking about one‘s own situation‖
(Jump Cut 11). While I do think later Third World Newsreel ―identified‖ with Third
World people, I would argue that Hess applies too much pressure on this quote in relation
to early Newsreel.
35
Moreover, it places the aesthetics of the group at some distance beyond the scope of
production and distribution. In other words, it was not solely the limitations of their
material circumstances during filmmaking that caused their films to represent reality the
way they did.
In that regard, the way in which an event like the student protest at Columbia is
filmed and described through the commentary is reminiscent of how early Newsreel
approached multiple sociopolitical situations like various worker strikes, a march on
Washington, or a rally of Black Panther Party members. In other words, while Newsreel
was in this specific mode of reportage, the capturing of the event was of the utmost
importance. Furthermore, the raising of political consciousness in this mode found
stronger footing in the conversational relationship that would ideally follow a screening,
as opposed to a radical subjectivity forged through the individual interaction with the
relationship between image and sound presented in the film (similar to Dziga Vertov
Group). This can be contrasted with a more nuanced aesthetic practice like the one at
work when the subject of Newsreel‘s focus and representation is changed to one that
occupies an even smaller position in the sphere of political discourse, like the Vietnamese
people.
People’s War was filmed in 1969 when Newsreel members went to Vietnam in an
attempt to document how the Vietnamese lived, organized, and interacted with their
government. Though the footage was confiscated upon their return, it eventually became
one of New York Newsreel‘s longest films at 40 minutes. The film opens with
Newsreel‘s logo—white letters on a black screen that flash and sound as if being shot
36
from a gun—before the screen remains black while air raid sirens are heard. In this way
the opening serves as a foil to the final sequence, where two men work together as they
saw through a piece of lumber. As the image of the workers fades, the sound of the saw
continues on through a black screen and forces the viewer to interact with a relationship
of image and sound that conflicts with more traditional documentary methods that were
being employed by the group back in the U.S. As Jonathan Kahana suggests, ―this final
construction of sound and image asserts that like the work represented, cinematic
representation is merely an instrument of a larger project, the ‗reconsideration‘ and
‗correction‘ of the image of the Vietnamese people in the Western media and in Western
ideology‖ (185). What Kahana hints at is a connective understanding of representation
that links this sequence to the approach of the Dziga Vertov Group. By separating the
sound from its visual context, the end of the film ―constructs‖ a novel (at least for
Newsreel) attempt to approach their method of representation through reflexive means
because it moves beyond the realm of purely capturing images in order to agitate.
However, the approach also differs methodologically from the Dziga Vertov Group in
that Newsreel attempts this reflexivity through proximity instead of alienation. Compared
to Pravda, for instance, this sequence from People’s War depends on a close
representation of reality that creates its reflexivity because of this sudden break in
image/sound that betrays more traditional documentary techniques. While Pravda
achieves a similar outcome, that film does it through a reflexive moment that hinges on
the filmic techniques instead of making its point through a depiction of ―garbage.‖ In
other words, the subjects of Pravda are of less importance than the elements used in the
37
construction of their new image in the film. One can think of the Czech workers in
Pravda speaking without subtitles and how the film cares less about what they are
actually saying than creating a moment where the audience must recognize why the film
withholds this information. The Vietnamese in People’s War is most often translated
through the voice track, and so the final sequence becomes significant when it no longer
adheres to the close relationship with the people it depicts.
Though the rest of the film contains diegetic sounds, voices in Vietnamese (both
translated and not), and English voices from the Newsreel members providing
commentary, another shot calls attention to itself and solidifies People’s War as a film
that strives to achieve more than earlier Newsreel films. Following a sequence of loud
and choppy shots of planes flying overhead while soldiers fire at them with heavy
artillery, there is a quick cut to a shot of a woman descending underground in the dark.
As she moves further down, the sound of the planes and gunfire slowly fade to the point
of complete silence as another shot of the women walking through a dim tunnel continues
for more than twenty seconds.
38
Figure 3.3. Woman begins her descent underground in People’s War
It is the longest take in the film and leads to a number of sequences that remain silent and
depict underground work of the local people. The shot achieves a more intimate
connection with the subject being depicted and uses diegetic sound to create boundaries
between underground and above. Despite being within a traditional mode of capturing
reality, the shot and the proceeding sequences achieve this representation in a
considerably more distinct way than their earlier films. If Newsreel‘s goal was to show
―war films‖ depicting locals fighting against capitalism and imperialism, then the shots
preceding this tunnel sequence are exactly that. And yet the focus is drawn away from
that war and placed instead on a sphere that the outside world (and literal sound) cannot
breach. The point here is not just that there is a difference in approach when the subject
changes for Newsreel, but that this change is manifested in their aesthetic choices as well.
Following this line of thinking, one can map out the progression of the group as it
39
transitioned toward new subjects and a new appreciation of the relationship between
aesthetics and audience as a result.
This progression is suggested not only through the discernible stylistic differences
but also in the scholarship around the films and interviews with Newsreel members.
Christine Choy, a member of New York Newsreel in the early 70s before creating Third
World Newsreel, offers the following concerning the change in approach and style
between the two groups:
Now, some of our films have ten tracks of sound. Much slicker work. But it works
both ways. Most American audiences are conditioned to see slick films; sloppy
films do bother them. Both aspects have their own values. The films that have the
immediacy, the roughness, have a different type of emotional impact, and a
different type of consciousness (Millner)
Here Choy highlights the ―slick‖ nature of films18
that both early Newsreel and Dziga
Vertov Group films attempted to combat while also foregrounding the impact that
stylistic differences have on the audiences. This is significant for a couple of reasons:
first, it marks the early Newsreel films as eliciting an ―emotional‖ response as opposed to
an intellectual or political one; secondly, it suggests that consciousness-raising is directly
tied to aesthetics. Though the first part is demonstrated through films like Columbia
Revolt, where the ―roughness‖ of the film spawned such violent reactions when screened
for other young people, the second notion marks a distinct separation from the early
18
This ―slick‖ nature does not refer to something like Hollywood films—where viewing
consumption was made easiest—but instead to a realization of the degrees of ―slickness‖
that can be traced through these groups‘ catalogues.
40
Newsreel motives in terms of reflexively viewing radical subjectivity. The focus is no
longer on capturing ―war‖ or ―garbage‖ with the intent to radicalize classes by
combatting bourgeois cinema with that view of reality, but instead on trying to convey
another level of class consciousness through the ―slick‖ aesthetic nature of a different
kind of film. In this way, the comparison of early Newsreel and Third World Newsreel
offers another link to the type of aesthetic experimentation employed by the Dziga
Vertov Group.
Despite this similarity, it is clear that while the Dziga Vertov Group was
constantly attempting to display their reflexivity through their aesthetics, the moment of
reflexivity for the members of Newsreel can best be seen in hindsight. In terms of the
―slick‖ elements of film that were avoided by early Newsreel, Robert Kramer exemplifies
this notion and shares a similar sentiment to Choy by stating, ―You can have beautiful
films and be a revolutionary. It was an error of Newsreel to believe that to proletarianize
was to uglify‖ (Levin interview). This interview occurred in 1976, when Kramer might
have had enough time to reflect on the early Newsreel aesthetic in relation to their
underlying motivations at the time.19
The quotation resonates once again with the films
discussed in this section and provides further strength for the argument that reflexivity
can be seen in the movement towards Third World Cinema, an embrace of altered
subjects, and differing stylistic approaches to representation.
19
It should be noted that this discussion took place within a conversation of Kramer and
Douglas‘ film Milestones (1975), though Levin‘s question was based on a comparison
between Newsreel‘s ―propaganda films‖ and the political purpose for filming Milestones.
41
Likewise, David E. James focuses on Teach Our Children (1972), a film
that centered on the Attica prison rebellion in 1971 and was the first Third World
Newsreel film, as the film that ushered in a new understanding of anti-
establishment cinema for the Newsreel moniker in terms of subject and
filmmaker. In relating Teach Our Children‘s directors (Choy and Susan Robeson)
to their film‘s subjects, James argues that ―the minority female filmmakers of
Third World Newsreel and the Third World prisoners they made films for and
about were alike in previously being most completely the victims of cinematic
imperialism, most completely anathema, even for the emerging feminist cinema‖
(220). This is significant not only because it continues to combat imperialist
cinema in accordance with the early Newsreel agenda but also because it extends
the opportunity to participate in political discourse to the fringe of society. No
longer does the film rely on interviews in order to portray one image of Columbia
students and another image of police. Instead, Teach Our Children uses
interviews of inmates to create connections to poor, urban, minority communities.
As a result, James sees ―a recurrent intratextual reflexivity, a politicized
equivalent of and heir to the underground‘s own filmic self-consciousness‖ (220)
when comparing Third World Newsreel to those earlier Newsreel attempts. What
is necessary to keep in mind, though, is that the impetus for this new direction
actually began in early Newsreel and appeared through aesthetic outliers like the
tunnel sequence described in People’s War. The methodology, subject, and
location changed for People’s War, but that sequence, along with the closing
42
sequence, attempted a filmic reflexivity before a broader reflexive moment took
place years later.
This progression of Newsreel that has been suggested is essential for this
study because it allows for the greatest connection between Newsreel and the
Dziga Vertov Group to be forged—the extension of public discourse to those who
were largely blocked from it. Because early Newsreel was more concerned with
representations of reality that would agitate and combat capitalist cinema and
ideals, the shift towards recognizing the importance of those on the fringe of
society took time to completely materialize. Moments occurred in early Newsreel
where this attempt was more at the fore—not only in People’s War but also,
according to Kahana, in No Game (1967)20
—but they were fleeting moments that
offered more of a glimpse of the focus to come than a convention at the time. Yet
as Third World Newsreel and its approach to filmmaking suggests, this tendency
of broadening political discourse is achieved in spite of observable differences in
motivation, aesthetic practice, and reflexivity between the Newsreel progression
and the Dziga Vertov Group. In the concluding section, I will expound on this
idea through a conceptual framework derived from Rancière‘s work; I will do so
20
Considered to be the first collaborative effort of the Newsreel group, No Game centers
on an anti-war demonstration that features a speech at the end of the film‘s soundtrack
about the loss of hope and inability to act. Kahana reads the speech as being ―modeled on
the Enlightenment concept of the public sphere of rational discourse‖ and goes on to say
that ―The Movement often expressed the view that the ideal of the public sphere was
theoretically and politically flawed because of the way that access to the sphere of
rational debate had historically been limited to the white male bourgeoisie‖ (179). While
this moment could have a part in this discussion, it is largely on methodological as
opposed to aesthetic grounds.
43
in order to demonstrate how this extension operates and to describe how such
disparate filmmaking modes can ultimately be accomplishing a similar outcome.
44
Chapter 4: Delineating the Politics of Aesthetics
Jacques Rancière‘s framework of politics is drawn from Greek democratic states and, as a
result, relies on the precarious relationship between those that govern and those that are
left out. The demos of the Greek society—―the people,‖ ―the common‖—occupied a
place outside of those that exercised the power of the arkhe, ―to begin,‖ ―to lead.‖ The
interaction is not political because it exists between distinct subjects, but because it
creates a subject through (and only through) the relationship between the two distinct
experiences. In a ruling system that operates on a basis of being counted—those that
ruled had a say in the governance while the demos did not—the attempt by the demos to
be accounted for and to be heard creates a political relationship for Rancière. In other
words, politics does not exist as a relationship between political subjects but arises
precisely when the demos are no longer part of the ruled. ―Democracy,‖ then, ―is the
specific situation in which it is the absence of entitlement that entitles one to exercise the
arkhe. It is the commencement without commencement, a form of rule that does not
command…But this situation of exception is identical with the very condition that more
generally makes politics in its specificity possible‖ (Dissensus 31). Here Rancière‘s
definition of democracy develops alongside his definition of politics, both of which rest
on the precarious and fleeting moment ―of exception‖ that occurs when the demos breaks
the regulated elements of their refused participation. For the Greek politic, this
participation meant being heard when constantly kept quiet; being visible in a space that
was common but could not originally be occupied by the demos.
45
This participation allows Rancière to tie the sensible inherently into the political;
in this system, sensible refers not to what is deemed prudent or diligent, but to the actual
senses experienced through the body. ―Politics revolves around what is seen and what can
be said about it,‖ Rancière suggests, ―around who has the ability to see and the talent to
speak‖ (The Politics 13). Hence, the organized nature of the polis is referred to by
Rancière as the ―distribution of the sensible‖—an account of the participation and
outcomes of that participation (what can be seen, heard, and so forth), which is disrupted
and redistributed during political moments. In this schema, the police is a force that acts
against political subjects by maintaining the established categories of participation. One
can think of the typical declaration by the actual police force—only one element that
determines the distribution of the sensible— ―Move along! Nothing to see here!‖ The
regularity of the scene works to suppress any sort of disorder that might disrupt it and any
appearance of the political subject that would seek to redistribute the sensible in that
space (Dissensus 37). This framework of the political that arises against the police is
crucial for understanding Rancière‘s ―equality,‖ which exists exactly within this kind of
redistribution and stems from the subjectification (La Subjectivation) of a political
subject.
It is with this subjectification that Rancière‘s politics is relevant for this study, for
both groups—the Dziga Vertov Group and Newsreel—can be seen intently reconfiguring
the gap between identity and experience that exists for the common. In the same way the
police determines the sensible and categorizing tendencies of the polis, so too does it
determine the identities of bodies regardless of their actual experience. Rancière claims
46
that ―‗Worker,‘ or better still ‗proletarian,‘ is similarly the subject that measures the gap
between the part of work as social function and the having no part of those who carry it
out within the definition of the common of the community. All political subjectification is
the manifestation of a gap of this kind‖ (Disagreement 36). This gap between the identity
dictated by the police and the experience within the community establishes an
opportunity for equality that is vested in the reaction of the members that comprise that
community to the name established for them. In other words, in the case of ―proletarian,‖
―what is subjectified is neither work nor destitution, but the simple counting of the
uncounted, the difference between an inegalitarian distribution of social bodies and the
equality of speaking beings‖ (Disagreement 38). Subjectification, then, is required for
sensible reaction by the political subject that then triggers a moment of equality and
recognition in the polis. In order for it to occur, subjectification first requires this kind of
gap between identification and experience, and then must be completed within the realm
of the sensible—that is, the realm of the aesthetic. In this way, the opportunity for
Rancière‘s political equality cannot be realized in a distant understanding of the involved
parties in politics, but instead must be inscribed in an attempt to ground representation of
those parties in lived, actual experience—to sensibly display and confront this ―gap‖
instead of continuing to partake in it. From here, we can see how both the Dziga Vertov
Group and Newsreel demonstrated this notion by approaching their films in a way that
contrasts the form and emphasis of a standard Marxist film critique.
As has been outlined above, Godard and the Dziga Vertov Group achieved this
subjectification through reflexive means, causing an intersection between the political as
47
defined above and the progression of radical becoming that can be mapped onto Godard‘s
filmic experimentation. Taking Pravda as an example of this heightened reflexivity,
Rancière‘s politics can be mapped onto the aesthetic elements of the film in order to
recodify those elements as examples of political equality. The worker whose voice is
heard but cannot be understood constitutes the best example of this reflexive awareness
of the gap between established categories coming from the police and experienced
identity arising from the precarious political subject. Another film that might genuinely
approach the worker as exactly that identity, or even the category of ―proletariat,‖ is
reinforcing and engaging in the police order— ―Nothing to see here!‖ At the moment the
audience is confronted with this worker who is made voiceless through the aesthetics of
the film, they become aware of the disjunction between the representation of the worker‘s
identity as ―Czech worker‖ and the actuality of that same body in the lived experience of
something altogether different21
. Their interaction with him is no longer just another part
in the categorizing process, but a realization of both the filmic elements at work and of
the gap created when that body would otherwise still belong to the ―uncounted‖ of the
21
Another succinct definition of politics and how it interacts with bodies: ―Politics breaks
with the sensory self-evidence of the ‗natural‘ order that destines specific individuals and
groups to occupy positions of rule or of being ruled, assigning them to private or public
lives, pinning them down to a certain time and space, to specific ‗bodies,‘ that is to
specific ways of being, seeing and saying. This ‗natural‘ logic, a distribution of the
invisible and visible, of speech and noise, pins bodies to ‗their‘ places and allocates the
private and the public to distinct ‗part‘ – this is the order of the police. Politics can
therefore be defined by way of contrast as the activity that breaks with the order of the
police by inventing new subjects. Politics invents new forms of collective enunciation; it
re-frames the given by inventing new ways of making sense of the sensible, new
configurations between the visible and the invisible, and between the audible and the
inaudible, new distributions of space and time—in short, new bodily capacities‖
(Dissensus 139).
48
faceless ―Czech worker.‖ The awareness on the film‘s side of this disjointed and political
moment— ―If you don‘t understand Czech you better learn it fast‖ —marks the junction
of Godard as experimenter/filmmaker and the film as politics as defined by Rancière.
Likewise, Newsreel attempts a similar interrogation of this same gap, but the
confrontation takes place in an outward interaction as opposed to an inward reflexivity. A
moment like the woman descending the tunnel in People’s War fits within such an
interrogation because of both its use of sound and its denial of voices. In this moment,
determined categories like ―Vietnamese,‖ ―women,‖ or ―worker‖ are no longer needed,
nor is there any voice diegetically produced in the scene or through the commentary.
Contextualized, this moment produces a redistribution of the sensible within the film,
marking a political moment that acts to produce new ―bodily capacities‖ of the people
depicted through the experience on the screen. While the film strives to understand the
plight of the Vietnamese people, this moment in particular is made markedly political
because it does not rely on that distinction—because the bodies shown no longer require
that position in the police order. The silence of the moment initially reads as an
awareness of the underground safety amidst a firefight above, yet in this framework it
serves to emphasize the position of silence that these bodies occupy in the demos. Their
inability to speak—literally to be heard by those in power—is reinscribed by the silence
experienced by both those bodies and in the audience proper. Compared to Pravda, the
speech of the workers in People’s War is not reflexively interrogated, but is instead
emphasized within the depiction of their silence. This moment and film, as witnessed
above, can be seen on the progression of the group toward other similar topics of
49
documentary; even though the moniker ―Third World Newsreel‖ becomes a direct
adherence to police order, the films themselves still offer additional opportunities to
outwardly interact with bodies found in the demos and still contain the ability to produce
subjectification as a result.
Applying Rancière‘s politics to these two moments created by these groups
affords critics another mode through which radical films can be analyzed and connected.
Throughout this study, great emphasis has been placed on the disparity between these two
groups in multiple aspects of their approach—underlying motives, filmic techniques,
understanding of militancy, and so on. As a result, these groups can be placed on a
spectrum of success in a number of ways depending on the critic. One can compare their
theory versus their praxis, their engagement with the audience on multiple levels or their
reflexivity (or lack thereof). In other words, thinking along Marxist terms that take such
elements into account, one would be in a position (like Cannon) not just to place these
film groups and their films on a spectrum but also to label one successful and one not.
Yet Rancière‘s thought offers a form of reconciliation of the two approaches and eschews
the tendency to determine success along such conditions. Following Rancière, there is no:
criteria for distinguishing good political films from bad political films. In fact, we
should avoid asking the question in terms of criteria for the political evaluation of
works of art. The politics of works of art plays itself out…in the way in which
modes of narration or new forms of visibility established by artistic practices enter
into politics‘ own field of aesthetic possibilities (The Politics 64-65)
50
In other words, viewing political films through the traditional way and determining
whether they are ―good‖ or ―bad‖ has the relationship of politics and art backwards. This
is especially poignant for the kinds of leftist critiques that must decide whether a film
adheres to a certain set of standards in relation to the totality of revolutionary film.
Instead of viewing a cultural object and determining its politics on a spectrum, one must
understand how that work of art interacts with the elements of the precarious political
moment created by the sensible experience of that artwork. We can no longer compare
the aesthetics of revolutionary films in order to pass qualitative judgment on a specific
element (or sets of elements), for doing so does not allow the ―politics of the work of art
to play itself out,‖ nor does it account for the creator‘s revolutionary becoming that
entirely relies upon that stylistic agenda. What Rancière‘s approach offers, then, is the
kind of contextual analysis of art that is necessary for the study of ‘68 films—both in
terms of a director‘s process of identifying with a class position throughout his or her
corpus, and the context in which certain aesthetic elements are presented in a particular
film.
51
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